Morphometric analysis and detection of invisible archaeological elements by spectral treatment of digital images
- PDF / 4,757,293 Bytes
- 10 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 53 Downloads / 189 Views
ORIGINAL PAPER
Morphometric analysis and detection of invisible archaeological elements by spectral treatment of digital images Aroa Gutiérrez Alonso 1 & Mercedes Farjas Abadía 1 & José Antonio Domínguez Gómez 2
Received: 27 April 2015 / Accepted: 22 July 2016 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2016
Abstract The aim of this paper is to describe the creation of a method to apply digital image treatment, consisting of a combination of filters and algorhythms, to prehistoric rock carvings, to enhance the information obtained from them. In the experimental phase a study was made of a laboratory piece and two highly valuable pieces of cave art from the Tamanart Valley in Morocco and the Casares Cave in Guadalajara, Spain. The results clearly demonstrate the potential of the proposed digital methodas information was obtained that could not have been achieved by the traditional techniques. Keywords Digital images . RGB . Filters . Algorhythms . Supervised classification . 3D model
INTRODUCTION Digital image treatment began in the form of a mathematical procedure that was used to correct photographs and enhance their interpretation (Jensen 1986; González and Woods 1992). Since the early 1980s, computer-aided image enhancement has been recognized as a useful tool for documenting and conserving prehistoric art. The problem involved was the difficulty of conserving the documented archives, due to the
* Aroa Gutiérrez Alonso [email protected]
1
ETSI en Topografía, Cartografía y Geodesia, Technical University of Madrid, Ctra. Valencia Km 7, 28031 Madrid, Spain
2
Department of Applied Geoinformatics and Spatial Planning, Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Czech University of Life Sciences, Kamycka 1176, 165 21 Prague 6, Suchdol, Czech Republic
use of the conventional photographic film. In 1983, Michael Rip proposed a method to eliminate this problem consisting of digitalizing colour slides by means of a “scanning microdensiometer” and adding a constant brightness value to individual pixels to enhance image clarity (Rip 1983: 77, 1989). However, at that time this technique was out of the reach of most researchers. During the 1990s, the appearance of new and affordable software (Corel Draw, Photoshop, etc.) made possible computer-aided image enhancement and the technique was then applied to prehistoric art to study the role of digital images in archaeological documentation (Mark and Billo 2002). This technique was based on the capacity of the human eye to better distinguish chromatic differences than different tones of grey (Ruiz 1994). This led to studies on capturing false colour images in remote sensing in archaeology (Bognanni 2010). At about the same time, the colour positive photographic film algorhythm (Rip 1983) became one of the most popular methods for documenting rock art. This method involved converting analogue images to digital by means of a scanner, which had both advantages and disadvantages. The conservation of prehistoric art is a constant headache for the scientific community, and the changes i
Data Loading...
